There is an east-west rail line – double track – which runs through the Mayfield district. Seems to carry mostly coal (power plant?) unit trains. Two questions – the other day I was visiting my daughter (who lives there and is, oddly, a train nut)(oddly, since she’s really a medieval historian!) and we saw what looked like a unit train of coal in what looked like a smaller version of the US rotary dump cars – BethGon etc. Are they used?
And then yesterday, she saw a passenger train on the line. I quote: “medium/short length passenger service pulled by an older diesel unit (what one sees nowadays running freights, not passenger). The colour scheme was, I think, navy blue and yellow.” What was it? Equipment transfer?
You might want to have a nose around Wagons on the Web to see if you can spot your wagons there. It’s a pretty good site with lots of pictures of UK freight wagons. http://web.ukonline.co.uk/wagons/index.html
It probably wasn’t coal though as it moves in various types of hoppers. Rotary dumpers are not used. Probably scrap or aggregates is what it was.
Our coal hoppers now tend to be HAA, HBA, HDA, HFA, HMA wagons and they’re not ribbed like Bethgon wagons. The bigger coal hoppers tend to be HHA. As Hugh says could be something else, even ballast, see link.
On page 108 of “BR and Private Wagons” by Colin J Marsden (Published Ian Allan 1984) is illustrated wagon class PTA number BRSV26686 which was in service in Scotland hauling Iron Ore to steelworks. No idea of where the steelworks was located is given in the book, but similar wagons were also used in South Wales. These are typical US design wagons, although the trucks are of a European design. The cars run (or ran) in fixed rakes with AAR type “F” couplers within the set, and buffers and screw couplers to allow coupling to standard British locomotives. These end cars had to be uncoupled from the locomotive to go through the tippler. These look very similar to US coal wagons but are, of course much smaller. They carried 77.5 metric tonnes.
An operator named “Direct Rail Services” operate locomotives in dark blue with yellow ends as do “GB Railfreight” . These locomotives are marked DRS and GBRf respectively. Both could provide locomtives for movement of passenger stock empty or for a railway enthusiasts excursion. Some train operators hire locomotive and cars for service in peak periods or if equipment has failed. I don’t know of recent occurences in Scotland.